Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

The only thing it says on the box is "chios mastic".
"Mastiha" in Greek is just another word for "chewing gum" although its not used very frequently. We call the mastic "mastiha chiou" which is translated as "chios mastic".

great to hear that wfr, please let us know what the ENT will tell you.

waitingforrelief wrote:cyber, what do you think? it says chios gum mastic on the package. it says chios mastiha somewhere else on it.

I recognise the packaging but inside were yellow brittle pebbles not the white on the pictire. I wonder if the shop uses the packaging to store substances other than the original. It's quite possible.

waitingforrelief wrote: i haven't tried boil it yet, but i popped on in my mouth to try to chew it - and it instantly became like chewing gum. it is impossible to swallow. the mastic itself looks yellow, but very light. almost whitish. there's no sweet taste. there's almost no taste, actually. and then like i said, it turns into a very tough chewing gum once i start to chew on it.

This sounds like the chewing gum. The gum I have has a very very subtle herbal/woody vey weak tea tree taste; nothing like the chewing gums you get on the market. It's very natural tasting and is a translucent pale, pale yellow, almost white. The gum I have is also very tough. Tough on my jaws - they hurt a bit!

waitingforrelief wrote: my mouth definitely feels better after chewing it, but i don't know exactly if it helps my breath because i had to go outside right after i chewed it.

My mouth feels fresh after chewing it but you need to get someone else to smell your breath, because it's hard to know if you have BB or not. I produce a lot of saliva from chewing this gum.

waitingforrelief wrote: then i tried to put it in a cup of tea with boiling water. it turns gooey but i'm not sure that it's melting.

It doesn't melt; just softens. I found that I get the most benefit from it after leaving it in a cup of boiling water for 1/2 a day or overnight, then I drink the water. Don't eat the jellyfish goo that's left over because it's resin and plugs you up!!! I sip on the water every few hours which seems to have antiseptic properties and keeps me fresh for a few hours.

waitingforrelief wrote: i tried to put some in my mouth and couldn't swallow it because it's too tough. then i tried to chew it and it became really really tough, like plastic, i'm not kiddng. problem is some got stuck on my teeth and i hope i can scrape all of it off!!! it's hard!

Try sucking on it. It'll last a few hours. I also found it sticking to my teeth; given its antibacterial/fungal properties I think that it might be a good thing. The coating eventually dissolves.

waitingforrelief wrote: it smells like resin, i can smell that on my breath but i don't know if my bb is gone. i mean my tea has a resin smell to it so i hope that even tho' the mastic itself is not edible, i'm actually ingesting some of it in the tea.

Probably the best way to go, is to dissolve in tea leaving the residue behind. I steep mine in camomile tea, but i also pour boiling water over it in a cup and drink sips of that throughout the day.

waitingforrelief wrote:i don't know - doesn't sound like the same stuff that cyber has.

you'll have yours shortly so you'll be able to make comparisons!

waitingforrelief wrote: i've seen recipes online for mastica, but given how tough it is, and that it doesn't melt, i don't know how one could use it to cook!!

The yellow pebbles that I bought is the one that's added to cooking apparently. It's brittle and dissolves readily. Maybe the other stuff is used as well.

waitingforrelief wrote: i can't imagine how else to use this except to chew it like chewing gum. except that it's pretty tough to chew and i don't think it works as well as what cyber did with hers. esp. now that i've drunk some of the tea, i think i can still smell my breath a little.

try steeping it in hot water only and drinking the water. The tea might not be helping the BB.

waitingforrelief wrote: so i can't determine whether this is a successful experiment or not. but if nothing else, it gave me a laugh. it's just kinda funny how it turned to plastic and stuck to my pan like glue.Keep it up!

I found that the benefits accumulate e.g. this is the second morning I have awoken to being and feeling BB free!

waitingforrelief wrote: by the way, noptical, i made an appt with an ENT today. Thanks for the encouragement.

Great news, hopefully, he'll be able to locate a cause.

noptical wrote:The only thing it says on the box is "chios mastic".
"Mastiha" in Greek is just another word for "chewing gum" although its not used very frequently. We call the mastic "mastiha chiou" which is translated as "chios mastic".

great to hear that wfr, please let us know what the ENT will tell you.

oh so what i bought is chewing gum? but when i put it in my mouth, it doesn't really taste like gum either. in fact, without boiling first, it tastes really bitter, now i realize. and it'd get stuck to my teeth so much that it's a bit impossible to eat.

can you tell me what people do in greece with it?

cyber -

thanks for all the detailed info!!!!

i will keep steeping it hot water and see. mine does have the same smell that you described yours. i thought that you'd mentioned somewhere that you ate the gooey stuff, that's why i tried to eat it. haha

my "breath buddy" is not around to test my breath. but i know that my bb wasn't gone last night. i could smell it myself. it did seem to be better and my mouth definitely felt cleaner.

how much mastic do you put in your hot water?

can't wait for your package to arrive so that i can do somemore experiments. i think there's something to this mastic stuff. i just have to find out how much it works for me.

waitingforrelief wrote: i thought that you'd mentioned somewhere that you ate the gooey stuff, that's why i tried to eat it. haha

well i tried to save you the pain - i did eat it and described it as swallowing a jellyfish and then it did literally plug me up!!! I also found out the the locals use it for diaorreah!!! I've been searching for known side-effects, but haven't been able to find evidence. I make sure that I'm drinking lots of water and that I have a good intake of fibre. I eat lots of fruit, veg and nuts and I also do porridge every morning. I've also gone back to eating meat and am BB free, so far...

waitingforrelief wrote: how much mastic do you put in your hot water?

one blob about 1cm2.

waitingforrelief wrote: can't wait for your package to arrive so that i can do somemore experiments. i think there's something to this mastic stuff. i just have to find out how much it works for me.

I feel that I'm getting better every day and haven't had any BB episodes in over 2 days now... but i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

well, since i don't have anyone to check my breath now, i can only rely on observations of reactions and my own sense of smell.

my mouth definitely feels a bit cleaner, and i don't have as much bad taste in my mouth. but the metallic, salty, thick taste is still there. i will floss in a while to see if there's a fecal odor between teeth. usually by this time of day it'd be there.

i sucked on some this morning and have been sipping water/herbal tea with mastic all afternoon. the thing is i keep smelling the mastic on my breath, so i don't actually know if it's masked the bad smell or if it's on top of clean breath. i have to say tho' i haven't really gotten reactions today and i've sat close to people. i had meal with people at a small table and the person next to me, who had once offered me mint WHILE i had a mint in my mouth, didn't seem to be afraid to talk right to my face. Then I was in close quarters with a friend and he had also reacted to my breath in the past by first screwing his face tight while i talked and then started talking away from me. today he kept looking straight at me pretty up close without flinching. even when i checked my breath in private i thought i could still smell a little bad breath. but nothing as pungent as without the mastic.

cyber, do you always have mastic on your breath? i seem to because of the residual gum on my teeth that i couldn't get rid of. and altho' it's nothing like having a horrible smell on my breath ,i don't really want to smell like mastic all day either - esp. if there's still bad breath underneath.

and also, has your breath been improving over the last few days of using it? does it have an accumulative effect?

doing the lick test- my saliva still smells bad, altho' there seems to be the consensus that saliva scent doesnt' necessarily mean the presence of bb.

anyway, i guess i won't know for sure until i have someone check my breath. but reaction-wise, it's been definitely different. my fear is that these people are already used to my breath now. and that since i stopped acting as awkward today with the mastic giving me some (real or false) confidence, they are able to feel less awkward in talking to me as well, and that's why they didn't react as much/at all. (of course anytime anyone puts their hand over their face, i think of it as a reaction. but i've noticed that people sometimes talk with their hand over their face/nose/whatever for no reason anyway.) but i still got really nervous after a prolonged period of being semi-up close to someone. my stomach hurts after a couple hours from the tension even tho' i don't think i really showed it.

i have noticed that i feel just a little bit close to being nauseous after taking it. and my sinuses feel a little different. today there's something that felt almost like a gunk which went down my throat. it was a disgusting feeling. i mean it has happened to me before occasionally, but i 'm wondering if it has something to do with the mastic. usually i don't FEEL the PND as much because the area where the nasal passage and the throat connects usually feels too clogged up or something. but today i could feel it a lot.

found this supplement (gum) with mastic


http://www.worldwidehealthcenter.net/ca ... hp?prod=77

It seems like mastic has antibiotic properties without those side effects. A legitimate research , actually published on a scientific journal, indicates eradication of H. pylori on some patients after taking mastic for 2 weeks.

Many real people recommend mastic for H. pylori, but some say it didn't do anything for them. But, those people also took a lot of antibiotics, which might have messed up things inside.

Given the rare chance of side effects, I hope whoever decided to take mastic continue taking it 1g/day for a month, and tell us if it can eliminate your bad breath.

During the years we have all come to understand that anything only kills the bacteria in the mouth will promote the bacteria production in the long run and will actually make bad breath worse. We must treat the persistent problems inside our body. I also ordered 28 grams and will do the experiment later.

it is such inspiring that cyber is getting relief from mastic.i am so much curious to get that mastic

This evening, I have been speaking about tree resin with my adult students who are a treasure chest full of information. Much of their medicinal traditions are oral and have been passed down through the generations. It appears that little has been researched or recorded. So, I am going to be busy this week identifying some of these plants, their resins and the symptoms they are believed to cure.

Waiting - I don't know if i smell of mastic or not but to tell you the truth I would rather smell of mastic than have my old BB back!

I have just ordered a small bag of the Chios mastic from this on line greekshop http://ecoclub.com/shop

report on mastic experimentation -

not certain with how much it helps with breath. there's less fecal smell on my floss, for sure. but i can still smell it on my breath. mouth feels cleaner, doesn't taste as bad. the metallic taste is dramatically reduced. i think that metallic weird odor is gone or significantly reduced as well, but fecal odor is still there, sometimes smelling stronger than usual even. but as i've mentioned before it seems to hvae helped my sinuses a bit, so i don't know if my sense of smell has improved because of it and that's why i smell the fecal odor more.

it is possibly upsetting my stomach a little. i get a feeling of being hungry all the time, and then it becomes heartburn. so i'm a little concerned about that.

i've been sucking on it, chewing the goo after steeping it in hot water/herbal tea. and sipping the liquid most of the day when i'm home. it's not so much that i mind having the mastic on my breath - but that i'm having that smell on top of bb.

if my stomach continues to be bothered by it, i might have to stop. i feel like i'm getting less reaction but simply cannot be sure. wish i had someone to ask near me.

cyber, has your husband confirmed that you're bb-free from the mastic?

waiting and cyber: How are your tongue colors ? Is there any reduction on the white coating ?

my tongue is pretty pink - but i don't know if that's very different from before the mastic.

my tongue was always very very white and coated after i started using those "bb products" out there. but i never knew if it was the true color of my tongue.

and i don't know if my tongue had turned pink only after cleaning up my system more in the last year or two, or if it's been pink ever since stopping my use of those products. but it doesn't seem to be a main source of my bb.